Thoughts Create Feelings

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach Trista Guertin.

Hi everybody, welcome back to This Daring Adventure. Thank you so much for joining me.

I was just looking up Starbucks because a couple years ago, I guess it was three years ago, they stopped making the eggnog lattes and I have to tell you that was my favorite treat for the holiday season. I know eggnog a lot of people have very strong opinions of. And I never really drank it on its own, but there was something about these eggnog lattes. I thought they were just so much fun, and they were festive, and they were a special treat, and they tasted good. And then they stopped them. And I was so upset. This year, they have this, and I thought it was like an Oat eggnog latte. And I had it the other day and I thought it tasted funny. I thought it was some sort of vegan I don't know. And I thought, okay, I'll try it. And it was okay, but it didn't quite obviously taste the same. And I was just looking it up and it's basically Oat milk with cinnamon and nutmeg, so it's not, there's no eggnog at all, it was okay, I have to say I think by the end of it, I came around and I was thinking about going back today to get another one, but I still think about those eggnog lattes, They still were very festive and such a great treat for me, anyway, we are looking at closing out the year.

I'm enjoying being home for Christmas and doing a lot of planning for 2025. I still have a couple of more workshops.

The Get Unstuck webinar is this Friday the 13th. The link will be in the show notes to register if you haven't attended that. It's a great introduction to my work and what I offer, an explanation of why you are stuck, and how to get unstuck for good. Because that is what I specialize in. I help women get unstuck for good. I know that the process that I use can help you move forward, and that you will never be stuck again. It doesn't matter what the issue is, whatever problem, whatever it is, you want to, move yourself forward from or create, I have the tools and the skills that I can teach you that are, it's really a game changer and it works. And I am super excited to share it with everybody.

So if you want to attend of those webinars the link will be in the show notes.

And of course, I'm still offering the free 30 minute coaching sessions, which I really enjoy doing. I'm thinking I'm only going to be offering those till the end of the year. And then I'll see what I do into 2025, 30 minutes doesn't sound like much it's 20 minutes of coaching, but it can be very powerful. Like you can get a good shift within that 20 minute period. You can bring any issue or problem that you wish. If you want to learn more about what coaching can do for you, this is a great opportunity. So the link will be in the show notes for that as well.

And as we approach the end of the year, I am facing the end of Self Coaching Scholars, or Get Coached, with Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School. She is ending that program and taking next year off, and that program, her work, she's who I certified with for my coaching, it really has been truly such a remarkable journey for me. I first came across her podcast probably, I think it was like 2015. To be honest, I didn't really seriously start listening to it until probably 2017. I was downloading these episodes and randomly listening, but not really piecing it together.

And then it was 2017, in the summer, that I really listened and something clicked and I started listening regularly to the podcast. And then 2019 I joined Self-Coaching Scholars her monthly coaching program.

And then in 2020 I signed up for Coach Certification. So she has been a huge part of my life, both in terms of time, but really in terms of the content and the material and the inspiration and the. Coaching support has been huge, and so huge, in fact, that I became a coach and was really keen to share this with other women, and that I've left my career and started my own coaching business. That's how powerful it was. And that's how, important it is because the whole reason why I became a coach is because everybody needs to know about this and it has such a huge impact personally on me and, on its ability to change the world. lives for the better.

So that's what we're doing here today.

And I wanted to talk a little bit about how thoughts create feelings, because the work of Brooke Castillo and the Life Coach School has been based on The Model, which is an awareness tool that she teaches In order to understand how we are getting the results that we are in our lives, we look at the root cause of why we're getting those results. And then we can use the model to create any result that we want. And so it is a very powerful tool. It is a tool that brings awareness As to where you are and the importance of learning that thoughts create your feelings. And this is not something that she teaches exclusively. Most of the life coaches out there will teach the same material, right? That, you are responsible for your own experience, for creating your own reality. But the way that she has taught it spoke to me in such a way that it just clicked and it made sense. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I guess it was partly because it was, you learn how to. apply it, you learn how to use it. And that to me was the most powerful part.

So here I wanted to dive into that concept and share that with you. And hopefully you will find it to be as much of a game changer as I did. So if you've ever felt like.

You are in an emotional rut you're stuck like you no matter what you do You just can't shake this low level sense of frustration, sadness, disappointment, whatever it is that you just you know, you're stuck in these cycles ruminating thought loops not getting any traction to move yourself forward and that's You know, like me, I started using self help back when I was probably in, my teens for sure my teens, and started with Louise Hay and all of them and tried all the self help tips, or, all of the affirmations and whatnot, but still, still feeling crappy and just not happy and negative. That was definitely my journey from, in my teens until my mid forties, And, I was basically frustrated, I was living overseas, and stuck in that cycle of it's not great here, so let me go somewhere else and see if it's better over there. and just getting really frustrated with a lot of day to day things. And that's it. I was looking for something, I was in a long distance relationship at that point as well, which was really frustrating and I couldn't figure out how to get out of that misery, and that's when I, really started listening to Brooke's work, and the idea, the concept, that your thoughts create your feelings, and it took me a while to understand The Model, but, it's that process and learning and having that awareness that everything, we think has an effect on how we feel and then ultimately drives our actions and then creates our results. And this work is so important and it is really something that we should have been taught a long time ago, but okay, here we are. I started to understand how I have a responsibility over what I'm thinking and what it is creating for me. And this idea became so transformative. I started applying it on a daily basis in some of the most small things in my life. But it had very significant results. And I want to share a little bit about how you can start using it in your own life to take back control of your emotional experience. A lot of my clients come, and they're very frustrated, and they're very angry, and they're sad, and they're disappointed. And They believe that it is because of the external circumstances in their lives, their mother, their job, their boss, the weather, technology, politics, all of it. But we learn in coaching that's never the case. And let's dive in and I will tell you a little bit more why this is such a game changer. And the idea that thoughts create feelings is deceptively simple, but it's not always obvious. And most of us will go through our life believing that our feelings are caused by things outside of us. What someone said, what happened at work texts from our mothers, the weather, politics, who got elected. And we think that person upset me, or that situation made me feel anxious. But here's the truth. Nothing outside of you has the power to create your feelings. And that is really important. Nothing outside of you has the power to create your feelings. Your feelings are created by your thoughts about what's happening. It's how you're interpreting it. It's the lens that you're viewing it through. It's what you're thinking about it. Let me give you an example. I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I was living in Lebanon and driving myself to work in the morning, and I had to go six kilometers. And, in Lebanon, where I was, it was in the north, and it was a little bit messy, people were driving. There were no, I, and I tell you this, and it's hard to imagine now, but there were no stop signs. There were no traffic lights. There were no traffic cops. People were driving backwards and forwards and up and down and sideways, no signals. People were driving without taillights, working without, just all of it. It was chaotic. Not as bad as it could have been, but still. And, I would drive that six kilometers to work and people would cut me off and they'd come at me and they'd be driving on the wrong side of the road and all the things and I would get so frustrated and so upset and so wound up that by the time I got to the, office, I was just a mess. And this would happen every single day, What I had to realize was that I was giving all my power away and that my frustration was not coming from the fact that someone had cut me off, but it was coming from my thoughts that, they shouldn't be doing this. It shouldn't be like this. They shouldn't be driving like that. It was wrong. And Then I started to shift and realized that I was getting myself all upset. I would honk my horn, I would yell, I would do whatever. And the person in the other car would probably be gone.

Probably didn't know that I was upset. Didn't care, even if they did know. And it didn't change anything. It never changed the way they were driving. It never changed the situation. And it just changed my emotional state because I felt worse. so it was the realization that I was giving away all of my power and that It was because there was such a resistance to the idea that the people, were driving like that. And the only person here who's getting upset with me. I learned how to just let go, dropping that resistance, that things shouldn't be like that. And I could just decide that I wasn't going to think that it shouldn't be that way, that it was okay, that I didn't, I basically, I told myself I didn't have to react.

Now, the situation didn't change. It was just my thoughts about it that did. And those were the thoughts that were creating my feelings. Understanding that my thoughts were creating my feelings took a bit of work to understand the chain reaction and what was going on.

And so I, was learning the work of Brooke and the model. And I also looked at some of the work of Byron Katie.

And Byron Katie's approach is so practical because she gives you a tool, like she does The Work.

And it's essentially four simple questions that you can ask yourself to unravel some of the thoughts that are causing you pain. And She teaches us to examine our beliefs and ask, is this true? Can I absolutely know that it's true and I started, you know looking at that and seeing how much of my emotional experience was driven by the stories that I was telling myself and that was very evident with the driving.

And then looking at Brooke's model. It's Very simple, and it's very straightforward, but it is very profound. And it basically breaks everything down into five components:

Circumstances, which are the facts of a situation, which are always completely neutral.

The thoughts, which are the sentences in your mind about the circumstance.

The feelings which are the emotions you experience because of your thoughts, and the actions, what you do or don't do as a result of your feelings.

And then finally, your results, which are the outcomes you create based on your actions.

Now here's how it works, and let's go back to the idea of the driving.

So my circumstance was someone cuts me off in traffic. And I'm thinking they're so reckless and irresponsible, and I get the feeling of frustration. I was honking my horn, I was yelling, and I was definitely stewing about it for the rest of the day. And part of the result was me yelling and honking the horn and being obnoxious and being, irresponsible and selfish and rude. And then, of course, I was creating more tension and stress for myself, which was definitely true.

But, if I can change my thoughts to something like, it's okay, I don't have to react to this. Then, the rest of my model would change too.

My feeling wasn't as intense, and I could, just focus on something else. And then my actions, it just basically the model just all dissolved from there because I wasn't even doing anything. I was just going on my way, going to work. I'm not having that reaction. And it was just an overall more peaceful experience. I definitely felt lighter. I definitely felt better. that tool, that framework was a huge light bulb moment for me because it gave me a practical way to work through my thoughts and my feelings. And it's not just about noticing my thoughts, but it's about intentionally choosing thoughts that make me feel better, that serve me better ultimately.

So it's a great tool for awareness, but then you can also use it to, to create what it is you want. Going backwards and using the model alternatively. It's a little bit more advanced but you can do this. And It definitely helped. over the course of, the next few years living and driving in Lebanon, there was a marked change in my response and how I was feeling about it. And I was just able to stay much more calmer.

So you can use this in any situation in your life as well. And you can apply it, the concept, with a simple three step process, and the first is noticing the circumstance, identifying a situation that's causing you emotional stress. Whether it's your mother, your boss, or an email, or looking for a job.

You write down the neutral facts, like what has actually happened, without any judgment or interpretation.

The facts have to be something you can prove in a court of law.

Then you want to examine your thought. What are you thinking about that circumstance? You want to write that down. Writing things down gives you such a different perspective. It gives you a little bit more objectivity. And, look at that thought. And see what is the feeling that it is creating for you? And then you want to look at, if it's creating a feeling of frustration or annoyance, what am I doing in response, honking my horn, yelling, getting wound up, stewing about it, ruminating, thought loops, whatever. I get to work and I'm cranky, and I'm yelling at people.

And then the result is obviously, I land up being rude or selfish And so that's how you use the model, right? You have your circumstance, you have your thought, you have your feeling, you have your actions, and then you have your results. And you can see how you're having this chain reaction, how this circumstance is playing out for you, how you are creating this result for yourself.

And having that awareness, first of all, is such a great gift. And then you can see whether you want to continue in that vein. If you want to continue thinking those thoughts, continue giving your power away. Maybe sometimes you do. I don't know.

But, a lot of times, obviously that level of frustration was not serving me. It was not helping me and it wasn't useful. It was not a good use of my time. It was not a good use of my energy and it didn't help me become a better person or a better boss.

And then, processing that emotion if I needed to, allowing, being with it, then I can see what else do I want to think about the situation?

Do I want to give my power away there? What else can I think that is going to serve me, that is going to help me feel differently. And it takes practice, but over time it just becomes second nature. And it is a very powerful practice. It is something that I teach in my coaching sessions and that I want to do a lot more of formally because it is such a powerful tool.

Understanding that your thoughts create your feelings isn't just a nice idea, but it is a skill. And it is a tool that you will use every single day to reclaim your emotional power. And whether you're navigating traffic in Lebanon or dealing with a tough conversation at work or simply feeling stuck in your own mind, you always have a choice.

You get to decide what story you tell yourself and what you want to think and that story will shape your emotions and your emotional experience.

So remember that, think about that, that your thoughts are creating your feelings. And just having that awareness can be a game changer. And if you want to learn more, as I said, you can click the link in the show notes and sign up for a free coaching session. And we can go over this in more depth.

I also invite you to Consider joining my six week jumpstart to building a better relationship with yourself. We do a deeper dive into some of the mindset work and understanding this at a much deeper level and applying it to your life. And it does bring more calm and more clarity to your day to day life.

And if you're feeling stuck, it's a great tool to understand what's going on in your mind, how you've landed up to be stuck in the first place, and where you can start to make some shifts to move yourself forward and to start feeling better and doing better, and moving yourself forward and I truly believe and I know that the work that we do in coaching will help you get unstuck for good. It's the tools and the skills you need for calm, for clarity, for confidence, and to create the life that you want.

You have the power to change your thoughts, your feelings, and your life. And coaching is a great way to help you do that. Learn the skills and the tools that you need to change your life for good.

All right, all the links are in the show notes.

Thank you so much for being here.

If you have a moment to rate and review the podcast, I would greatly appreciate it. And I will talk to you next time.

Thanks everybody. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life again.

As always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one on one coaching session.

You can also follow Trista on Instagram at tristavguertin.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.